C’mon, ObamaMedia, is that the best you can do?

One of the good things about Mitt Romney as a candidate is that he appears to be pretty well vetted and squeaky clean. After all, if that were not the case, why would the pro-Obama media (but I repeat myself) have to reach back to his youth to find a scandal? The dog-on-the-roof thing not only didn’t fly, it backfired, as we discovered that as a child, Barack Obama broke a taboo that holds across the Western world: you don’t munch on man’s best friend.

This sort of intentional, collusive smearing is going to drive conservatives and Republicans nuts. The media, with help from Obama operatives, will do it as often as they can. There will be some big made-up thing in October, and maybe one on the weekend before the election. This is how they roll.

It will do some damage, too. But if this is the quality of their hit jobs, Mitt Romney should be able to weather the storm just fine.

Of course, the Washington Post will get away with it. They will continue publishing, and when they have an opportunity, they will do this again. The process of them destroying their own credibility, just like the New York Times, is a slow one, and their final demise will take years.

But they look foolish, and it will help some voters to take their future smears with a grain of salt.

Conservatives also counter that young Barack Obama was a bully, too. A blog called The Talk of the Times unearths an Obama middle-school tale from “Dreams From My Father.” Classmates were teasing Obama and a girl named Coretta, suggesting they were boyfriend and girlfriend:

“She’s not my g-girlfriend,” I stammered. I looked to Coretta for some assistance, but she just stood there looking down at the ground. “Coretta’s got a boyfriend! Why don’t you kiss her, mister boyfriend?”

“I’m not her boyfriend!” I shouted. I ran up to Coretta and gave her a slight shove; she staggered back and looked up at me, but still said nothing. “Leave me alone!” I shouted again. And suddenly Coretta was running, faster and faster, until she disappeared from sight. Appreciative laughs rose around me. Then the bell rang, and the teachers appeared to round us back into class.”

But both Romney and Obama have nothing on Vice President Biden. Commentary’s Alana Goodman quotes from Richard Ben Cramer’s “What It Takes: The Way to the White House,” a book on the 1988 presidential campaign (in which Biden briefly competed):

Once Joey [Biden] set his mind, it was like he didn’t think at all–he just did. That’s why you didn’t want to fight him. Most guys who got into a fight, they’d square off, there’d be a minute or so of circling around, while they jockeyed for position. Joey didn’t do that. He decided to fight . . . BANGO—he’d punch the guy in the face. Joe was kind of skinny, and he stuttered, and the kids called him Bye-Bye, for the way he sounded when he tried to say his name. But Joey would never back down, and he knew how to box, when no one else did. . . .

Even after he left, after Mr. Biden got the job selling cars in Wilmington and moved the family away, Charlie Roth would still (in moments of duress) tell guys that his friend Joey Biden would come back and beat them up, if they didn’t watch out. (When Joe did come back, Charlie always had a list.)

The media’s goal is to throw as much mud as possible. Most of it may slough off, but a little bit will stick. A few people will be convinced. And they will do their best to hide anything in Obama’s past, as they have done quite well for the last four years.This is how it goes.

So gird your loins conservatives, but also take heart: If this is the best they can do, it’s not really all that good.

Christopher Cook is a writer, editor, and political commentator. He is the president of Castleraine, Inc., a consulting firm providing a diverse array of services to corporate, public policy, and not-for-profit clients.

Ardently devoted to the cause of human freedom, he has worked at the confluence of politics, activism, and public policy for more than a decade. He co-wrote a ten-part series of video shorts on economics, and has film credits as a researcher on 11 political documentaries, including Citizens United's notorious film on Hillary Clinton that became the subject of a landmark Supreme Court decision. He is the founder of several activist endeavors, including AnyStreet.org (now a part of Western Free Press) and Liberatchik.com. He is currently the managing editor of and principal contributor to WesternFreePress.com.